11-03-2025
From Teammates to Enemies: Formula 1's Greatest Same-Team Rivalries
You know a rivalry is hot when one guy throws down on the other's family. After two years of animosity, during which each racer traded jabs on track and in the press, Nelson Piquet went nuclear in a 1988 interview, saying, '[Nigel] Mansell is argumentative, he's rude, and he's got a really ugly wife.'These old friends were once karting teammates, but when they both ended up at Mercedes with a dominant car, things went sour—fast. Machinations! Team orders ignored! On-track collisions! Nico Rosberg finally beat Lewis Hamilton in 2016, then promptly retired. The relationship reportedly remains duo didn't hate each other, but 'there had always been tension at Ferrari,' said Phil Hill. With the title in play, 'we each knew that we'd have to fight with everything we had to win the battle.' At the Italian GP, Wolfgang von Trips ended up dead, and Hill won, making him the only American-born F1 champ to this day.'I have declared war.... It's war. Absolute war.' So said Gilles Villeneuve after teammate Didier Pironi ignored team orders and stole the San Marino GP win. Two weeks later, Villeneuve went out in qualifying, attempting to match his teammate's speed, and never made it back to pit lane most famous intrateam rivalry of all turned toxic at the 1989 San Marino GP. Ayrton Senna ignored what Alain Prost thought was an agreement to hold positions, and the tension climaxed with a literal collision at Suzuka that still has fans arguing. 'Ayrton didn't want to beat me,' Prost said later. 'He wanted to destroy me.'The second year of this pairing saw both in contention for the 2010 title, but Mark Webber loudly hinted that the team favored Sebastian Vettel. The feud boiled over in Malaysia during the second race of 2013, when Vettel ignored the obvious 'Multi 21' coded radio message to hold position and passed Webber for the grudge match, during their one campaign as teammates, is most remembered for Fernando Alonso sitting in the pit box during Hungarian GP qualifying to disrupt Lewis Hamilton's final flying-lap attempt. Following a harsh reprimand from team boss Ron Dennis, Alonso blew open the doors on McLaren's spying Jacques Villeneuve, already a world champ, threatened when young upstart Jenson Button joined the team? Uh, yeah. In Australia, at the season's first race, Villeneuve pitted a lap later than told, intentionally sabotaging his teammate's stop. 'Jacques didn't speak to me,' Button later recalled. 'He wouldn't even look at me.' Final 2003 drivers' points: Button 17, Villeneuve 6.
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